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Sunday, January 25, 2015

The First Transcontinental Call Was Made Today, 100 Years Ago By AT&T
On Jan. 25, 1915, After 40 years since he introduced the telephone to the world, in 1875, inventor Alexander Graham Bell spoke with Thomas Watson, 3400 miles away in San Francisco, making the first
transcontinental phone call in history.
New York Times, covering the story stated;

On October 9, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson talked by
telephone to each other over a two-mile wire stretched between
Cambridge and Boston. It was the first wire conversation ever held.
Yesterday afternoon the same two men talked by telephone to each other
over a 3,400-mile wire between New York and San Francisco. Dr. Bell, the
veteran inventor of the telephone, was in New York, and Mr. Watson, his
former associate, was on the other side of the continent. They heard
each other much more distinctly than they did in their first talk
thirty-eight years ago.
........
The record for long-distance talking was established last night when
Theodore N. Vail, President of the American Telephone and Telegraph
Company, on Jekyl Island, talked by way of Boston to Mr. Watson in San
Francisco, the wire being stretched 4,750 miles. In the afternoon Mr.
Vail had talked to Mr. Watson through New York, a distance of 4,300
miles.
........

At 4:30 P. M. here, when it was 1:30 in San Francisco, John J. Carty,
chief engineer of the company, announced that all was ready, and Dr.
Bell picked up the receiver in front of him as Mr. Watson, in San
Francisco, picked up his receiver. Then speaking in an easy tone, Dr.
Bell said:"Mr. Watson, are you there?"